BATMAN: STRANGE APPARITIONS
It isn't just the Saturday nights that are fevered in 70s Gotham City.

Writers: Steve Englehart, Len Wein
Artists: Marshall Rogers, Walt Simonson, Terry Austin, Al Milgrom, Dick Giordano
Colorists: Marshall Rogers, Jerry Serpe
Letterers: Ben Oda, Milton Snappin, John Workman
Trade Paperback
Published by DC Comics/Titan Books 1999
$12.95/£9.99

Reviewed by Andrew Wheeler

When the radioactive Doctor Phosphorus poisons the Gotham water supply, it serves as the catalyst for City Council president Rupert "Boss" Thorne's feud with the vigilante Batman. Thorne imposes a cease-and-desist order on Batman's activities, but Batman fights on regardless when classic villains like Hugo Strange, the Joker, Clayface and the Penguin step from the shadows. Batman also faces a different kind of challenge in the beautiful Silver St Cloud, while Boss Thorne finds he has problems of his own to deal with.

BATMAN: STRANGE APPARITIONS collects together the eight issues of writer Steve Englehart's run on DETECTIVE COMICS in 1977-78, plus two issues from his successor Len Wein. In his own introduction to the collection, Englehart claims his stories served as partial inspiration (alongside his own Batman script treatment) for Tim Burton's BATMAN movie. Bruce Wayne's smart and intuitive lover, Silver St Cloud, is thought to be the model for Kim Basinger's Vicki Vale. In truth, however, much of the mood of Burton's BATMAN was taken from the dark-edged interpretation of the character resurrected by Frank Miller's THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS. In STRANGE APPARITIONS, the cast and characters more closely resemble the famed Adam West television series.

STRANGE APPARITIONS is a classic example of super heroes at their most camp. The villains are melodramatic, the scenarios are incredibly hokey, the expository dialogue is gratingly dire, and the overall effect is resoundingly good fun. Hugo Strange runs a private clinic where he turns the great and good into monsters. The Penguin hires a theatre full of dancing girls to cover up a museum heist. Clayface fights for the love of a waxwork woman. The Joker tries to copyright fish. In this age of 'ironic' heroes it is unfashionable to enjoy this kind of nonsensical pantomime, but characters like Batman were never created to be ironic, and books like STRANGE APPARITIONS revel openly in their genre's true nature.

"Characters like Batman were never created to be ironic"

The art for the Doctor Phosphorus chapter of the story comes courtesy of the team of Walt Simonson and Al Milgrom, but it is muddy and disappointing work. The bulk of the book is illustrated by Marshall Rogers and Terry Austin, whose art style feels ten years removed from that of Walt and Al. Rogers portrays Gotham with a cinematic flare, while Austin uses a strong modern line, which his substitute Dick Giordano valiantly tries to emulate. Marshall Rogers also provides much of the bold, dynamic colouring for the book, which adds both glamour and grit in equal measure to the proceedings.

As a collection, STRANGE APPARITIONS is misnamed, as the spectral aspect of the stories is completely overshadowed by its human melodramas. Conspiracies, murders, and a satisfying romance are the real core of this entertaining yarn. Today, the whole package may seem a little dated and generic, but taken at face value, it is an immensely enjoyable piece of nonsense.

Recommended (with reservations: for Batfans and nostalgia-buffs only)

Andrew Wheeler is Editorial Consultant of PopImage.

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